bottlecap snakes

This project was...
...honestly the most fun my Kindergartners have EVER had making a project.
...their "most favoritest project in the world"
...an insane amount of prep for me, but worth every minute
...good for putting a HUGE dent in my stash of soda bottle caps!

PREP:
A few years ago I asked students to save bottlecaps. I had millions of them, and I stored them. Why? Because I am an art supply hoarder.
Ahem.
I had this brilliant idea to make snakes out of them, so I had my husband painstakingly drill holes in (not kidding, really) about 3,000 of them.
Yes, we are still married. Yes, he still speaks to me.

MATERIALS NEEDED:
1 piece floral wire, about 20" long
pre-drilled bottlecaps
various pony beads
various sized buttons
"googly" eyes
wire-cutters (optional---we used scissors)

To start, I had each student tie a knot at the end of their wire. They then used 8 beads to string on and make the tongue.

We then re-examined PATTERN and how we could use pattern to make our snake. Each student had 20 bottlecaps and strung them on in an A,B,A,B pattern. You can see in the picture above, it is important to string them on upside-down. You will see this at the end, as you have to glue the eyes on the top of the lid (it will make sense, I promise!)

When you get to the last bottlecap (#20), you must put it on backwards. This is the back of the snake. Next, it's time to make the "rattler". We do this using buttons! Students choose 8 buttons and sort them from largest to smallest. They then string them on large to small (so it looks like a rattle), tie a knot to end the snake, and clip any remaining wire off.

I gave them some colored Sharpies to color patterns or lines on the white bottlecaps.

See the front of this snake? This is the direction you must string them on so you can glue the eyes on. Not really sure why this student insisted on making black eyes, but whatever!

They named them and played with them. They absolutely LOVED this project, I am NOT kidding! This is the perfect project for Earth Day, or a thematic unit on repurposing products. The kids came in the next week and told me how they had made things at home out of toilet paper rolls and masking tape. I love hearing that kind of stuff, because that tells me they were excited about something we did! You can't hear that enough, right?!

If you are inspired and start asking your students to bring in bottlecaps, BE YE PREPARED! They will come in droves (especially if you make a prototype and show them what they will be making!)

Happy Creating!

makin' macchia

My kindergartners are making these beautiful "Macchia" in the style of Dale Chihuly! These are SUPER duper easy to make and every single one of them turns out breathtakingly beautiful.

Before we even started, I showed them a portion of the video "Chihuly in Action" so they could see how glass is actually blown and made. We then viewed some macchia from the Macchia Loop on his website. We talked about how "macchia" means "spotted" in Italian and about the process we would use to create Macchia of our own without using the dangerous supplies Chihuly uses to create the real deal. The kids loved how Chihuly initially called his Macchia series "the uglies"!!!

You will need:

3 coffee filters per child

Water-soluble markers (Crayola work perfectly!)

HEAVY spray starch

cups or yogurt containers

rubber bands

mat-board for final display

*I found that 3 works nicely for a display and they were able to complete this many in one class period. Obviously, vary this for your needs!

Process: Have students use marker to color designs on the coffee filters. Make sure you have something underneath (scrap paper or place mat) to catch the colors because they bleed through. Lay completely colored filters over cups and secure with rubber bands. I allowed my students to spray their own projects with the starch. They loved to watch the colors bleed together! It takes about 6-8 hours for the macchia to completely dry. It takes about 6-8 hours for the macchia to completely dry. When they were dry, we took them off and arranged them on a piece of 8x8 matboard!

You could extend this project in many different ways--

• Make a "ceiling" of Macchia similar to the ceiling at the Bellagio in Las Vegas


• Have students use color schemes on each different coffee filter (complimentary, secondary, primary, tertiary, hot, cool,etc)


• Have students re-tell the macchia-making process or write about it (cause and effect)

*We used our iPads and an app called Fotobabble to re-tell the process of creating the Macchia. These Fotobabbles were displayed with the students' work. More on that later!

Happy Macchia-making!

bunny sculptures

These are great centerpieces, egg-hiding-places, and just all-around wonderful paper sculptures of bunnies! I make these with my Kindergarten and First Graders each year and they love them every single time! Materials you will need: 1 9x9 sheet green paper (for "grass") 2 9x3 pieces of white paper (for the bunnies' bodies) -- you could sub toilet paper tubes for these 1 4 1/2x6 piece of white paper for the ears and feet 1 small piece pink paper (for nose and ears) 1 small piece blue paper (for eyes) wiggle eyes (I use the sticker eyes from SAX Arts) 1 cottonball some crinkly easter grass (just for fun!) I will post a step-by-step tomorrow. My camera is M.I.A and I had to take these from my cell phone!